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Daily Scripture

+ 20th Week in Ordinary Time

I’ll do it myself.

Readings: Ezekiel 34:1-11 Psalm 23:1-6 Matthew 20:1-16

Therefore, shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: because my shepherds did not look after my sheep, but pastured themselves and did not pasture my sheep, I will claim my sheep from them and put a stop to their shepherding my sheep. I will save my sheep, that they may no longer be food for their mouths. [Ezekiel 34:10]

There is much talk about a vocation shortage—fewer young men entering the seminary and fewer still persevering to ordination. Not withstanding some notable exceptions this has resulted in the lowering of standards for ordination. Moreover, priests and candidates for the priesthood are being ‘imported’ from other countries whose needs are as urgent as ours.

The prevailing accent seems to be on the need to have a sufficient number of priests to ‘say Mass’ and provide for the sacramental needs of the faithful. But surely in the light of the Second Vatican Council, priests need to be more than presiders at Mass and providers of the sacraments, as important as are these roles.

The earliest experience of the Church can be instructive in this regard. The notion of presbyter provided the early church with presiders for worship and leaders for base communities. Celibacy was not an issue and there was no clerical caste. The gifts of the faithful were recognized in such a manner that men and women, married and single fulfilled the spiritual needs of the community including the sacramental needs.

Notwithstanding the inadequacy of the notion of shepherding people (sheeple?) the need remains for qualified men and women to minister to the needs of the community.

Ezekiel warned the priests and assured the people of Israel that God would find away to pasture his people.

Ezekiel’s words need to be taken to heart again and in fact we already see that God is indeed providing a way through the action of the Holy Spirit in the lives of men and women, married and single, who are tending to the needs of the faithful.

Second Sunday in Ordinary Time 'A'

Saturday January 19, 2008

“Fake it until you make it”!

For over fifteen years, noted author, Harvey Cox, taught a course on “Jesus and the Moral Life” in the large theater reserved for rock concerts at Harvard.

In the introduction to his book, “When Jesus Came To Harvard—Making Moral Choices Today,” he states that “despite all the sacred formulas and pious bumper stickers, and behind all the doctrines and dogmas about him, rightly understood, [the] Galilean still has a powerful, even imperative, moral significance for our times.”

Despite opinions to the contrary, university students of different academic pursuits and of many religious persuasions are at least curious about Jesus and his impact on the mores of individuals as well as religious and secular institutions and societies at large.

Young people today are often heard to say, I’m not very religious but I’m spiritual. Whatever our take on this observation, I think we ought not dismiss it too quickly or write off this already categorized millennium generation. At its best, religion protects spirituality and spirituality at its best authenticates and animates religious belief.

In a confusing world in which political rhetoric often gets mixed up with moral truths and where religious dogmas and doctrines are sometimes substituted for the Word of God, there is still a strong desire to know the mind and heart of God revealed not only in the historical Jesus in his time and place but in the Jesus who might appear today among his followers.

What does it mean to follow Jesus in the face of such radically different portraits of him ranging from Jesus Christ, Superstar, Godspell, the very traditional Jesus of Nazareth and the rather bizarre The Passion of the Christ, to name only a few?

Most scholars and preachers agree that Jesus insisted that his disciples respond to the presence of God in the “here and now.” He spoke of the “Reign of God” as something imminent, indeed actually present. “The reign of God is within you,” he said.

Several years ago, kids and teens and some adults were wearing WWJD—What would Jesus do? – bracelets. For some, perhaps many, it was just another piece of jewelry. To know what Jesus would do in our time and place requires more than a catechetical understanding of the life of Jesus in his time and place. We need to “ponder” the life of Jesus using our imagination in prayer. Over time, we will “know” what Jesus would say and do in our time and place – guaranteed!

We return this weekend to ‘Ordinary Time,’ and are introduced once more to Jesus as if for the first time. In fact, we are not living in ordinary times and we never have. (In the words of my wise father, the only reason the good old days were good is because we survived them.) How do we know what Jesus would say to us who are confronted with a host of moral issues to which Jesus was never exposed? Were he to appear on the Morristown Green this afternoon saying some of the things he said two thousand years ago, few including I would probably take little notice and write him off as an eccentric on a soapbox in a world of eccentrics in the soap operas of life. “The man has no common sense,” we might say. It is so much easier to relegate Jesus safely to the past as he is depicted in stained glass windows or on pious wall hangings.

The Commemoration of the Baptism of the Lord last Sunday took precedence over the first Sunday in Ordinary Time. The scriptural lessons this weekend however, continue to reinforce the implications of Jesus’ baptism both for his disciples and for us. “Jesus is the reason for the season,” is a trite but popular phrase used to remind us that Christmas is not just a secular holiday. In the words of St. Paul, Jesus is the one “in whom we live and move and have our being” today! Jesus is the reason for every season!

If we are going to follow Jesus, we need to know about him but even more importantly, we need to know him in the Biblical sense, i.e., to know him intimately as we know a spouse or a brother/sister or a friend. This is the kind of knowledge that brings Jesus to life in our time and place. In essence, we need to become ‘partners’ with God in Christ.

Although each one us was empowered individually at our own baptism to continue the work of Christ, we might look to other believers who image Jesus not just from a soap box but in their daily commitment to discipleship with Jesus. We need to look to one another for both challenge and positive reinforcement. When we come into this assembly and hold hands around this table literally or figuratively, we become the “Body of Christ.” His mission is our mission. He is the foundation on which the church was established.

It is within this context that we see the words of Isaiah in today’s first reading fulfilled. Though Isaiah was referring to Israel as the ‘servant of God’ and the light to the nations, we in the Christian tradition apply the text to the ‘People of God’ within the Church that with all its warts and faults and failings is called to be an instrument of saving grace to the world.

So, it is not enough to say that we are Christians in name. Our faith and love must show themselves in concrete deeds. In truth we can do together what we can’t do alone. Martin Luther King understood this very notion in his defense of civil rights and his determination that one day all men and women would be judged by their character rather than the color of their skin. It is for this reason that we form a community so that we can make practical, the work of the Gospel.

Harvey Cox makes a major point about Jesus style. In many ways, he was a disturber of the peace. He rarely gave pat answers but he engaged his listeners in a reflective process that would lead to answers.

I think the best way to say it is that we as a church, as a parish community of faith, need to reestablish our partnership with Jesus within the context of the Gospels.

In the words of Harvey Cox, we need “to bridge the gap between Jesus and ourselves. The secret lay in recovering the link between the rabbinic story-teller on the one hand and our own human imaginations on the other.”

What does it mean to be a light of saving grace to the nations?

Here it is in a nutshell:

People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centered; forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies; succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; be honest and frank anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous; be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never e enough; give the world the best you’ve got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis, it is all between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.

[“The Final Analysis” is a version of the “Paradoxical Commandments” by Kent M. Keith, quoted from “There’s a spiritual Solution to Every Problem” by Wane W. Dyer, Quill, Harper Collins, NY 2003

There’s a great expression in AA that may be helpful when you get stuck or are tempted to give up: “Fake it until you make it!”